Space for Transparency This blog by Transparency International provides an independent and informed viewpoint on corruption. It gives a space to start a worldwide conversation on possible solutions to overcome corruption, and on governance, transparency and accountability.

Three years ago my team visited Khulna, a district in the southern coastal region of Bangladesh. We went to meet the communities trying to rebuild their lives there after their villages were almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Aila in 2009. To assist the rebuilding, the Bangladesh government lent its support, channelled through a trust fund […]

In 2011 the then-president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, held a televised cabinet meeting underwater. Armed with oxygen tanks and waterproof pens, ministers signed a document calling on countries to slash their carbon emissions. Nasheed also pledged to make the Maldives fossil fuel-free by 2020, and announced his intent to buy land in neighbouring India […]

A colleague recently likened his experience tracking climate and REDD+ money in Mexico to an archaeological dig. Little by little, fragments of your object begin to reveal themselves, but not without a significant amount of time, resources and tenacity. At Transparency International we have been monitoring climate finance flows in six countries – of which […]

The World Bank is a leading heavyweight in development investment, presiding over US$30 – $40 billion per year. Inaugurated last summer, the Green Climate Fund could soon dwarf that portfolio. It is estimated that by 2020 it will be channeling US$100 billion a year in climate finance to developing countries – to help arrest the […]

The following was written by Alice Harrison, Communications and Advocacy Coordinator, and Leah Good, Programme Officer, for Transparency International’s Climate Governance Integrity Programme. Lea este artículo en español aquí. The Huilca family’s plot of land is a stark green anomaly on an otherwise arid mountainside. As we survey this small vestige of fertility from above, […]

Money laundering, bribery, embezzlement, cronyism; corruption has many guises and is endlessly creative. Its main fuel is a failure to acknowledge or act upon its existence. Last month’s Rio+20 conference on sustainable development dodged that fate. Sustainable development is about ensuring that economic growth can happen globally, but evenly and not at the expense of […]

Corruption has finally made it onto the Rio+20 agenda. Released over the weekend, the latest draft of the “Future we Want” outcome document recognizes for the first time that “corruption diverts resources away from activities that are vital for poverty eradication, the fight against hunger and sustainable development” – the goals of the summit. As […]

With the biggest climate summit in years a month away, two presidents from one of the countries most vulnerable to rising sea levels, the Maldives, have written for Transparency International about the importance of transparent and accountable responses to the challenge of climate change. Governance and climate change in the Rio +20 The Maldives is […]

“If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it,” was the press headline when Severn Suzuki addressed heads of states in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She was twelve years old, at what was then the world’s biggest ever political gathering. In an impassioned critique of unfettered industrialism, Severn lamented the decline […]

Alice Harrison, Communications Coordinator for TI’s Climate Governance Integrity Programme, reports from South Africa as the 2011 climate conference reaches its conclusion. As the sun rose on South Africa yesterday a burst of applause sounded from Durban’s conference hall as UN negotiators commended themselves for reaching an “historic agreement” on climate change. “We have worked […]

Space for Transparency

This blog by Transparency International provides an independent and informed viewpoint on corruption. It gives a space to start a worldwide conversation on possible solutions to overcome corruption, and on governance, transparency and accountability.